Crappy High School Poetry: The Final Chapter
That’s right, this is the final… thing. Apparently in high school I went through a poetry phase that was exactly seven poems long. Given the quality of the poems I’ve previously featured, I suppose that’s a blessing. Why so few? I don’t know… maybe I wrote more, I can’t remember, but these were the ones I deemed worth saving for posterity. Do you understand the implications? These were the cream of the crop, the best of the best. Can you imagine–do you even dare imagine–the ones I tossed aside? Best not go down that road; that way lies madness.
And so we come to the end of my Poetic Crimes Against Humanity with my magnum opus, an untitled poem about something or other. This one is pretty long, and I’m sure I thought it was wicked profound at the time not to give it a title, but now I see it for what it is: sheer laziness.
Enjoy!
One day when flying
I met a little man who was
Very old. The lines on
His face formed a
Maze –
One of such complexity I
Doubt even Daedalus could ever
Escape.
His eyes seemed older than did he –
Inward looking,
Not mindful of me.
I asked the man
About himself and the days
Which created him.
He looked
At me with his
Rusty eyes — and I saw, in
Those two mirrors, a
Stagnant depth, one of age,
Age that was the man, but
His eyes seemed older than did he –
Inward looking,
Not mindful of me.
Large, colorless tears fell from
Those two cloudy orbs –
To be lost in the
Maze.
His cracked mouth cracked a little
More, and his dry throat
Got a little drier. Though there was
No sound, his eyes spoke, for
His eyes seemed older than did he –
Inward looking,
Not mindful of me.
The next day when flying
The clouds cried about
Nothing, and I saw the
Same.
I encountered a lake — alive,
Brilliant, full of reflections –
Truth and illusion. But as I
Dived, the images I lived rose
Pictures of an old man,
Very old. And
My eyes saw themselves as they were –
They seemed much older than did I –
Outward looking,
Reflections of Sky.
Thoughts/comments:
- Let me just get this out of the way, first thing: I actually kind of like this poem. Parts of it rhyme, and rhyme = real poetry.
- That said, what a pile of self-indulgent, nonsensical garbage.
- In the poem, I establish in the very first line that I’m flying.
- Let me just repeat that: I’m flying.
- No, I don’t know why, either.
- The reference to Daedalus is absolutely unnecessary, but at the time I apparently believed that mythological references automatically gave the verse a nice sheen of class.
- They didn’t then, and they don’t now.
- “Inward looking” needs a hyphen. Sorry, but the Grammar Police don’t take a day off.
- Rusty eyes? How did his eyes get rusty? Wait a minute… the old guy’s eyes are metal. He’s totally a robot! This poem is totally about a robot senior citizen! Too, too awesome.
- Wait, how can they be rusty if they’re mirrors?
- Eyes as mirrors? Hack move, Horn.
- How did I know the old guy’s throat got drier? I think it’s possible–nay, probable–that I am some kind of flying ear-nose-and-throat guy. If they ever make a movie titled “Winged Otolaryngologist Meets Robotic Septugenarian,” it will basically be a license to print money. Guaranteed hit. You heard it here first.
- Clouds crying? Again: hack move, Horn.
- “Outward looking” needs a hyphen, as well. Was I paying no attention during English class?
- No, I wasn’t. I was too busy writing terrible poetry.
- At the end, am I suggesting that I’m the old guy?
- Somehow?
- So, basically… a flying throat doctor meets his older self who’s a robot and then he falls in a lake? Dude.
- Best.
- Poem.
- Ever.
Yet Another Example of My Crappy High School Poetry
Well, whoop-de-do, everybody! It’s time to indulge that most American of pastimes, ridiculing things we don’t understand. And trust me: no one understood me in high school.
No one, that is, except David Letterman. I discovered his Late Night with David Letterman when I was around 12 or so, and thereafter I watched it whenever I could. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe now, but seriously: David Letterman used to be funny. I’m not kidding! Anyway, David Letterman had such an impact on me that I penned this clumsy ode to his show, “Meditations on a Late Night.”
Hey, my high school days weren’t all about pining for unattainable cheerleaders with mall bangs. They were also, apparently, about embarassing devotion to a gap-toothed goofball on the television.
I can’t decide which is worse.
Meditations on a Late Night
A journey through New York can be
A tiring thing, for I — I –
I don’t know. Kevin. should we do that one?
One?
One hour in Paradise, transported
Two thousand miles away in no time –
Do we have time for this one?
One?
Letter number one begins: Dear Dave. I — I –
I sense the presence of things unreal –
Real –
And if they weren’t real, would I be able to do this?
This time, people unseen will laugh.
Next time, maybe no - -
Paul. you really should have come to rehearsal.
Sense makes no sense here, in a
World with no direction –
Uh Dave, that’s Gurnee.
A chorus of broken glass beats in rhythm –
ANTON!! WILL!! SID!!
Signaling the end of an era of an hour –
Late at Night.
Thoughts/comments:
- Let’s just come right out and say it: This poem is so terrible it makes me wish I had written “She #6″ instead. It’s just a bunch of stuff that Dave used to say and do on his show, crudely strung together with non-sequiturs. It’s horribly dated–unless you were reading this in 1987 and you were also a Letterman fan at the time, it can’t possibly make a lick of sense.
- Meditations, eh? Could you imagine meditating on this to try to achieve nirvana or inner peace or whatever it is those weirdos do? I imagine it would leave you the metaphysical equivalent of Larry “Bud” Melman.
- Wait a minute… I didn’t mention Larry “Bud” Melman. Not even once. I wrote a “poem” musing on ’80s-era David Letterman and I didn’t bring up Larry “Bud” Melman?! What the heck was wrong with me?
- Don’t answer that.
- Anyway: RIP CALVERT DEFOREST 1921 – 2007
- See how I repeated that “One?” line? Yep, I sure did that for some reason.
- I grew up Arkansas, so excuse my geographical ignorance. The distance from Little Rock to New York City is roughly 1200 miles, not 2000.
- “Sense makes no sense here” — you said it, brother.
Return of Crappy High School Poetry
Welcome, one and all, to this, the latest entry in our recurring review of rhythmic ridiculousness that is Crappy High School Poetry. The pageantry! The overwrought metaphors! The predictably regular references to my “soul”! I do have some good news: this is the final entry in the romantic and wearisome “She” series.
Now for the bad news: I wrote other non-”She” poems, too, so… this ride ain’t over yet.
Okay, let’s do this thing. This one is a monster, and like all monsters, it is frightening and it haunts the dreams of little children. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the terrifying finale to the terrifying “She” series: “She #5.”
She #5
Pyramids of memory and
Teardrops of desire. waiting –
Dreaming constantly — of
A whisper: a brush of lips.
A touch.
Her.
Windows glisten with the
Soul’s own rain, and outside
Clouds sympathize. With
Warm breath of winds they speak:
A love unseen is still love.
Her eyes speak in brilliant
Shades of Sky, to an eager
Soul –
To the last faded
Glimpses of Rainbow.
A look launches
A thousand gallant ships of
Fiery passion into the stormy sea of
My Soul. And with
Whitened waves of fury it speaks:
A love forbidden is still love.
Forgotten pasts dissipate as Storms with
Muted Thunder, and a
Dream continues — hands clasped,
Eyes captive, souls touching,
Loving,
Her.
Soft whispers wind their way
Into my being, and her
Delicate magenta touch somehow speaks:
A love held captive is still love.Webs of emotion covered
With morning dew stretch between
Us — and a spirit touch
Sends us soaring into Sky.
A Soul whispers:I love you.
Where to begin? Thoughts/comments:
- The “soul” count stands at five. The title of the poem: “She #5.” Coincidence?!
- Yes.
- I admit to being impressed by the nonstandard units of measure. Memory, for example, is measured in units called “pyramids,” while desire is doled out in “teardrops.”
- The line about windows glistening with the soul’s own rain… this was clearly an attempt to sound clever.
- As such, it was a spectacular failure.
- Apparently I was beginning to find “she” so restrictive that I had to branch to the much more mellifluous “her.”
- “With warm breath of winds they speak…” Wait a minute… who speaks? The windows? Am I getting this right? The windows are speaking?
- Wait, “windows” are clearly a metaphor for my eyes, so… my eyes are speaking. With wind. Somehow?
- I literally cannot imagine a universe in which that line makes any kind of sense.
- Oh, she launched a thousand ships, did she? This was clearly an attempt to shoe-horn in a pointless reference from classical mythology.
- As such, it was a spectacular failure.
- Read the line about her soft whispers winding their way into my… sigh… soul, and then add in her “magenta touch.” Sound familiar? It should.
- This poem marked the beginning of a new poetic crutch: “Sky.” Her eyes speak in brilliant shades of “Sky,” we later soar into “Sky.” Keep that sky thing in mind, because you’re going to see it again in a later installment of Crappy High School Poetry. So, you know… stay tuned or whatever.
- No, I don’t know why I capitalized “Sky.”
- And “Sky” is not the only Word I subjected to Random Capitalization: I capitalized “Soul” (most of the time). “Rainbow” for some reason. And “Muted Thunder.”
- By the way, Muted Thunder was my favorite band in high school.
- The line about webs of emotion covered with morning dew is incredibly suggestive of… forget it, I’m not going there.
- Remember: a love poorly portrayed in an amateurish adolescent poem is still love.
- Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Again with the Crappy High School Poetry
Lord help us, they just keep coming! That’s right, just when you dared to hope that the parade of execrable verse would end… “She #4″ rears its ugly head to give you an open-handed literary slap to your metaphorical mouth.
Now that’s some wicked awesome wordsmithing. Oh yeah… I still got it.
Okay, we’ve put this off long enough. To the crappy poem I wrote in high school, ol’ chum!
She #4
Through a night ever reaching
For an unattainable day
I found myself weeping, held captive by
The thoughts that fell slowly from my mind
To fill my empty heart with her.In a faintly bitter morning
Of an indistinguishable day
I found myself walking, one with
The unfeeling streets, the hidden sun
Reminding me of herIn a hazy dusk, softly descending,
Of an imperceptible day
I found myself wondering, my continuous daydreams
Replaying shared feelings of both
Love and pain, a monument to her.Through a night swiftly moving
Towards the next inevitable day
I found myself wishing, a slave
To memory, crying for an end to my world.
A world without her.
Thoughts and comments:
- As you can see, this was a valiant attempt at… something or other. I was apparently trying to impose some kind of structure on the thing, but the structure is completely arbitrary, adds nothing to the meaning, and relies on adjectives that end with -able.
- Just like all the best poetry!
- My description of the next day as “unattainable” clearly doesn’t hold water, as the very next stanza takes place in an obviously attained morning.
- Thoughts falling from the mind to heart… Not an anatomical genius, was young Price.
- Shall I compare thee to a depressing, cloudy day? Apparently so, since “the hidden sun” reminds me of her.
- “Imperceptible” day? Imperceptible? Okay, it’s pretty obvious that I’m reaching here, just trying to shoe-horn in a word that kind of sounds like words I’ve used before. But… not only does the word “imperceptible” not make a lick of sense–how can you fail to perceive a day?–but it also breaks from the ironclad -able rule to run with the simliar but inarguably inferior -ible suffix. Bad form, sir. Bad form.
- Did I just walk around and pine all day? ALL DAY? No school, no job? I’ve just got all the time in the world to wander aimlessly and mope. What a life!
- To be fair, maybe it was the weekend.
- At the end of this latest outing, I’m “crying for an end to my world, a world without her.” If you weren’t clued in before that this was a crappy high school poem, you are now. It’s just a fancy way of saying, “Oh, she’s gone… somewhere… and I wish I was dead.” So far, this has been the general subject of… hmm, let me check the numbers… approximately 104.6% of my high school poems.
- I may have allowed a rounding error into my figuring.
- I’m weeping, I’m walking, I’m wondering, I’m wishing. If I could encapsulate the whole lame cycle into a single w-word, it would have to be whining.
- So is she dead? Sure. Why not? I mean, who knows what I was thinking when I penned this drivel? I don’t think it was about any one girl in particular. Maybe it’s about a girl that just wouldn’t go out with me… in which case, it could conceivably be about every single girl at my high school.
Even More Crappy High School Poetry
The humiliation continues, verse by verse, as we sift through the poetic detritus of my high school years. For this installment, I subject you to yet another entry in an excruciating series of hacky romantic poems. That’s right, it’s another ridiculous “She” poem. As the third link in the seemingly unending chain of love bleats, it is uncreatively but rhymingly titled “She #3.” Take it away, much younger and slightly stupider me!
She #3
I run She walks We live Alone – Behind – Apart – A man A girl Two souls – Afraid Of strength Two lives – Of life And depth She walks And death Of mind Behind – And in- And soul I run Between. Within. Alone.
My thoughts:
- The major problem with this poem… how the heck do you read it? I mean, you can read it top-to-bottom, then left-to-right, as in “I run alone—a man afraid of life yada yada yada.” Or, you could also read it left-to-right, then top-to-bottom, as in “I run she walks we live alone—behind—apart—yada yada yada,” and it makes just as much sense.
- Which is to say, none.
- Got a little dash-happy there. Dash, young Price. Dash!
- Oh, so I’m a man, but she’s a girl who walks behind me (subtext: where she belongs)? So not only was I a pseudo-romantic sucker, but I was also horribly sexist. And also kind of creepy. So I guess some things never change?
- At least I portrayed myself as weak and fearful (pretty dead-on description of late-80s me), and “she” as strong and… uh… deep of soul?
- Whatever that means?
- Soul! Again with the soul! I just couldn’t let a poem go without referencing the soul, man.
- The Soul Maneuver was such a hack move I did it twice: “Two souls.” Stay tuned for She #476: “Soul soul soul/Soul soul soul soul/Soul.”
- Soul!
- If I’m pining so hard for her, why do I keep running away? It seems that, back in the day, I fundamentally misunderstood how the whole thing was supposed to work.
- What is between life and death, exactly? A coma? So this is a poem about being afraid of comas? Maybe she’s a deadly hit-girl working for the mob, and she’s going to put me in a coma? Somehow?
- Actually, a poem about a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a coma-inducing mafiosa… I have to say, that would be pretty friggin’ awesome.
More Crappy High School Poetry
In the interest of preemptively humiliating myself by letting the entire world see what a sap I was in high school, I give you… “She #2.” That’s right, I actually incorporated into the title a subliminal statement about how crappy it is. #2, see? GET IT?! And as for the #2: yeah, I wrote a whole series of these horrible ”She” poems, so prepare yourself for unending dreck about how she is so awesome and I love her so much and she doesn’t love me and oh god I wish I was dead.
Anyway… so, this is my second whine-laden foray into whiny whining about some girl who probably did not really exist. Whining! Actually, as I recall, I kind of had a crush on a freckle-faced, curly-haired brunette around this time and this may have been about her. Just to creepify it even more for you, I did not personally know her, she did not know me, I never met her, and to this day I couldn’t tell you her name if my life depended on it.
I can’t imagine why I didn’t date much in high school.
She #2
The blue of her whisper
falls softly on
my mind’s pillow.The rose of her touch
warms my thoughts
and soothes them.The scarlet of her love
stains my soul with a
deep red fire.I love her.
Thoughts and commentary:
- Just so you know, this poem won first-place in a school-wide poetry contest my senior year. No foolin’! With that in mind, imagine how bad the other entries must have been.
- To be fair, that first line about the blue of her whisper? Not that bad.
- That said, comparing my mind to a soft, squishy, down-filled head-cushion? Fan-freaking-tastic.
- Okay, so we’re using colors to describe her, right? Her touch is, according to the never-infallible Wikipedia: “the color halfway between red and magenta on the HSV color wheel, also known as the RGB color wheel, on which it is at hue angle of 330 degrees.” Who wouldn’t be soothed by that? So soothing.
- Her touch somehow warms my thoughts, so again, I find myself drawn to a telepath. Apparently, Bryant High School was thick with Jean Grey-types in the late 80s.
- Ah… finally, the true mark of a hack romantic love poem: droning on and on about my “soul.” That chick I never met and never will meet totally touches my soul, man. MY SOUL. I’m romantic, can’t you see that? PAY ATTENTION TO ME.
- Wait, she doesn’t touch my soul, she stains it.
- With fire.
- “Deep” fire.
- Somehow.
- Fire doesn’t stain, ya dope. It burns. It scorches. It carbonizes. Instead of saying “stains my soul,” I should’ve said “carbonizes my innards.” Now that’s romantic language.
- “I love her.” Really. State the obvious much?
Stay tuned… more awful poetic offal to come!
Crappy High School Poetry
A friend of mine sent me a link to this website the other day. It allows you to automatically assemble a gothic-style poem (the kind that does not rhyme, of course), the kind of horrendous garbage depressed high school students write about how death is awesome and no one loves them and blah blah blah etc, scribbled in notebook margins alongside anarchy symbols and Violent Femmes lyrics.
And as I sat there making fun of losers that wrote crappy high school poetry, I remembered: hey, I wrote crappy high school poetry! If I’m going to make fun of it, I should at least have the guts to illustrate my point with some of the free verse I penned back in the late 80s, when I was a lonely, tortured, misunderstood Byron-type who fancied himself the quintessential Hopeless Romantic. (In reality, I was a nerdy Star Trek fan who played in the band and was less Hopeless Romantic than just plain Hopeless.)
To that end, I give you the first in a series: Crappy High School Poetry by the young Price Horn. Today’s installment: “She.” I’m even including a scan of the original in all its Commodore-64-dot-matrix-printed glory, with the full text following:
She
She
Walked below a burning bridge to
Tear my throne awayThe heat scorches, but it cannot erase.
She
Filled my mind with thoughts of flame and
Love and joyous pain.The heat draws me even through my fear.
She
Reached into a fiery void and grasped
Me, and I ran.The heat remains.
I remain.
Thoughts and questions:
- She walked below a burning bridge, did she? That’s a pretty dangerous strategy, what with the flaming timbers falling on your head and whatnot, but she was willing to take the risk because she was on a vitally important mission: to tear my throne away.
- Why did she want my throne?
- Wait a minute… why did I even have a throne?
- Seriously, a throne? What does any of this even mean?
- Was the bridge set aflame by the fiery void?
- How does a void burn? By its very definition, a void can contain no flammable materials. That’s why they call it a void.
- She used Jedi mind trick powers to make me think about “flame.” Considering all the heat and flame and burning bridges and fiery voids, you would think flames would be foremost on my mind.
- Oh, she also implanted thoughts of love (of course she did) and “joyous pain.” Joyous pain… shades of the “bringers of pain and delight” from the classic Trek episode “Spock’s Brain.” (I told you I was nerdy.)
- It’s nice to know that despite the burning and the running and the grasping and the hey hey hey it hurts me nice lady… I remain. Dude, that is so deep. Long before the Dude was abiding, the Priceman was remaining.
- Also the heat.
- In short: This telepathic chick totally loved me, but I ran… I ran so far away, mostly because of rampant flaming. Something tells me a man could read something into that.
We. Rock. So. Hard.
And here’s why: Remember this, our entry for that Glenwood Springs, Colorado vacation giveaway?
There’s even an official press release announcing our victory. Check that fancy pic!
Kudos to Shannon for the original idea, and kudos to the kids for putting up with me as I shot and directed the thing. Yes, there was some yelling (”We’re losing the light, kids! Time is money! CHOP-CHOP!”), but in the end it was all worth it.
We won. WOOT! No one can call Price Horn a loser ever again. (Something tells me that won’t stop anyone.)
Living the dream, watching it die: The Road Trip to Findlay, Ohio
On the evening of Friday, October 9, 2009, it began… the Mother of All Road Trips: the long-awaited trip to Findlay, Ohio. (If you don’t know why we decided to drive to Findlay, Ohio… well, here’s a refresher.) The players:
Tom, one of the original Findlay boys…
Jimmy, the guy with no connection at all to Findlay except he wanted to get out of town for some reason (probably legal trouble)…
Steven, because he always wants to horn in on our fun…
And me (not pictured). Aren’t there enough pictures of me sullying this miserable site? Trust me, you’ll be sick of my pic by the time this is all over.
So we hit the road about 8 p.m. that night, delayed only slightly by detours to Tom and Jimmy’s cribs to pick them up. Twice to Jimmy’s, actually, since he forgot his jacket like the sucker he is and we had to turn around to go get it.
And so we drove… and drove. We passed the time by listening to Weird Al Yankovic songs (at Steven’s request) and to old Phil Hendrie shows (or at least the first few minutes of several old Phil Hendrie shows, until we could figure out whether or not a show was appropriate for sixth-grader ears). I was behind the wheel for the first shift, driving all the way to St. Louis, where we stopped for gas. The gas station was not far from Tom’s ancestral homestead, and so his brother and sister met us to say hi, despite the late hour. After we all took breaks, Jimmy took over driving duties and we took off for the Illinois border. Thankfully, we had not yet crossed that border when I turned around to ask Tom a question and realized that he was not in the van. We had left him back at the gas station.
As we hurriedly flipped around to retrieve our now-confused compatriot, I told Jimmy, “I don’t care what happens the rest of the weekend… that right there just made this whole trip worthwhile.”
Jimmy made it all the way to Indianapolis before we had to take a weewee break. The sun was seemingly rising as I retook the wheel and headed further east. I say “seemingly” because the closer we got to the Ohio border, the darker it got. Seriously… Indianapolis: the beginning of a new day. Ohio:
How did that happen? But we didn’t let our puzzlement take our eyes off the prize. The skies finally started to lighten over the Buckeye State, illuminating gray, heavy clouds. And yet, and yet… the closer we got to Hancock County, the more the clouds parted, and by the time we reached our destination…
…clear, blue skies. Welcome to Findlay. We had arrived!
What city puts its big “Welcome” sign in a frickin’ cemetery? Findlay, Ohio, that’s what city.
And so the explorations began. We wandered through the town until we found a sweet breakfast joint, where we quickly and greedily devoured everything edible that was placed in front of us.
After freaking out the breakfasting Findlay natives with our strange outsider ways and weird Missouri odors, we checked out the Findlay downtown area. Some highlights:
Tom is remarkably excited about the possibility of shoe repair.
Shoes are hot in downtown Findlay, apparently. (I know I used this one earlier, but it’s too weird not to share again.)
The Hancock County Courthouse.
The Great Scot grocery store (where Brian shops)!
The library (where Brian updates his blog)! Nominee for Best Use of Landscaping to Obscure the Name of the Place.
The hardware store where Brian works!
(As an aside: this was perhaps the creepiest hardware store I’ve ever patronized. I guess I didn’t really patronize it since I didn’t buy anything, but still. As soon as we walked in the door, every eye in the store was upon us. A middle-aged fella, probably a member of management, asked us in a deep, Karl Childers-esque voice, “Kin I help yew boys?”, and then literally followed us through the entire store, one aisle away. We’d walk past an aisle and there he’d be at the other end, watching us. We’d try to trip him up and walk back an aisle, and there he’d be. We could not get out of there fast enough. Jimmy kept imagining his face appearing all over town the rest of the weekend, popping up out of mailboxes and freezer cases to ask, “Kin I help yew boys?”)
The University of Findlay, home of the Oilers, who were playing an away game that day.
Also home to the UF Bookstore… nominee for Least Convenient Operating Hours (Saturdays, 11am-1pm).
And something that was actually pretty cool: The Stately Raven Bookstore, housed in an old church.
Steven kept begging to return here all weekend. Not that I blame him, it was pretty cool. But Findlay waits for no man, and we couldn’t spend the entire day in the one interesting place in Findlay. (Oops, I did not mean to say that out loud.)
By this point, the three grown-ups—who did not sleep all night in the backseat like certain 12-year-olds who will go unnamed—were getting pretty tired and cranky, so we headed to our hotel.
It was on the east side of town, which seemed… I don’t know… kind of newer and more developed, with a mall and large chain stores and that kind of thing. It still seemed vaguely run-down and depressing, though. It was still unquestionably Findlay, Ohio.
Anyway, we checked in to the hotel room, which was pretty nice although it very oddly kind of smelled like curry, and then collapsed for a solid two hours. (Except for the ever-energetic and youthful Steven, of course, who stayed up playing video games on his Nintendo DSi.)
The brief restful respite gave us the energy we needed to explore the rest of the bustling Findlay metroplex. We went to check out the north side of town, passing Kimmel’s Mountain Man Meats.
(We took this picture just because Jimmy giggled uncontrollably every time we said the phrase “man meats.”)
The surprisingly attractive and architecturally modern Owens Community College. (Why? Because a fictional character’s fictional girlfriend went there. Fictionally. I know, I know… I have a problem.)
The Cube! (Home rink of Findlay’s minor-league hockey team, the Grrrowl.)
After The Cube, we wandered around town looking for an Oktoberfest thingy that we had seen advertised on the Internet (yes, Findlay has the Internet). We were pretty pumped about this thing, as it promised an appearance by Grammy-nominated polka powerhouses Fred Ziwich and His International Sound Machine. We expected a busy, boisterous street fair, with the aroma of sausages and sauerkraut and the sound of accordions and oompah-oompahs wafting through the air. But as we approached the site, our hearts sank. Not only was there hardly anyone there, it wasn’t even outside. It was inside a small senior center—sponsored by the Agency on Aging!—and there was a $5 cover. Disgusted and cheap, we turned our backs on the Oktoberfest and drove away, searching for souvenirs.
On the way, we briefly stopped off for a walk around the picturesque Blanchard River, which periodically overflows its banks and ruins everything.
Around the river were plenty of ramshackle, dilapidated buildings covered with graffiti. It was frankly kind of creepy, and this was the middle of the afternoon. I can’t imagine how scary the area would be after dark.
Anyway, back to FindlaySouvenirQuest ‘09. Turned off by the high prices at the University of Findlay Bookstore, we decided to check other retail options: Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, Meijer, and so on. Of course, as it turns out, UF won’t license its stuff to anyone, so we couldn’t find any Oilers memorabilia anywhere. (You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a display chock-full of Ohio State crap, though.) Finally, after making phone calls and checking ye Internette, we located a sporting goods store at the Findlay Village Mall that would suit our purposes nicely.
The store had a nice selection of Findlay High School Trojans togs, and the three of us spent a solid hour pawing through every single shirt and hoodie and sweatsuit on display, trying to decide what to purchase. (There were only three of us because Steven wanted no part of the Findlaywear search, opting instead to browse a nearby bookstore.) Tom, Jimmy, and I wavered and dithered so long I was afraid they would throw us out, but we finally made up our stupid minds and bought some relatively plain T-shirts that just said “FINDLAY” on them. GO TROJANS!
By this time, the Scramble Marie’s breakfast had long since worn off and we were a mite peckish. Thus, we made our way to a place I’d been pretty excited about trying: a dive-y local burger joint called Wilson’s Sandwich Shop. I had seen lots of cool things on Yelp about it, plus George Motz sang its praises in Hamburger America.
And brother, it didn’t disappoint. All the place serves is “hamburgs” and fries and “frosted malts.” Totally old-school, and wicked delicious. Steven tore into his hamburg like nobody’s business, and the rest of us followed suit.
(It was so good that I saved my little Wilson’s-branded Styrofoam cup and have it on display in a curio cabinet at home. Seriously.)
Stuffed full of beef and chocolaty dairy products, we decided to turn in for the night. We headed back to the hotel to kick back, chill-ax, and watch bizarre, unsubtitled Japanese variety shows on the cable system. Oh, Japan… something is so dreadfully wrong with you, and I. LOVE. IT.
The next morning dawned bittersweet, as we knew that this was the beginning of the end. We cleaned up, then cleaned out the continental breakfast buffet downstairs. We wolfed down the pastry/cereal/fruit in front of the TV, still glued to Japan TV. Even the news is hilarious on this channel! (Can I just say that “Salaryman Kintaro” is ten kinds of awesome?)
And so… we tossed our junk sacks suitcases in the van, and pulled away from the hotel. But there was so much more to see, we couldn’t stop ourselves from taking a few more photos on the way out, including:
A shot of the gorgeous intersection where Findlay High School sits.
The KFC where fictional Tommy worked back in the old-school web site daze.
A drive-thru liquor store… apparently considered a good idea in Ohio.
And some other random junk.
I pulled over to the side of the I-75 on-ramp to get one last shot of Findlay, in the form of an overpass emblazoned with the city’s nickname.
And that was that. South to Dayton, then west on I-70 all the way back to Kansas City.
Well, almost all the way… first, there was the Incident in Brookville, a little town west of Dayton where we stopped to get gas and somehow got roped into changing a lady’s tire for her. Oh, to have recorded a video of that comical process… it took all three of us almost 45 minutes to change a single tire. Yes, there were some unique problems that kept it from being a run-of-the-mill tire change, but a single real man probably could have completed the task in 15 minutes.
Still, we got it done, and got back on the road for 10-11 hours of boring, monotonous driving, enlivened only by:
- Dropping by the old high school where I used to teach in Marshall, Illinois
- Fearing for our lives as Tom took the wheel for a while
- Getting a phone call from my mom and trying to explain to her why on earth we drove to Findlay, Ohio
- Laughing as Jimmy, who had taken the wheel in St. Louis, slammed on the brakes and threw his Jack-in-the-Box burger to the filthy floor
- Singing along—loudly and annoyingly—to the extensive 80s-pop playlist on my iPod
Finally, around 10:30pm Sunday night… home. Two days on the road, covering nearly 1500 miles, staying in Hancock County, Ohio for barely 24 hours. It was a fabulous weekend, not because of the bizarre destination, but because I had three buddies to share the experience—laughing, pointing, being laughed at, being pointed at. We did something goofy, something unquestionably odd, just because. Why not? It’s as good a reason as any.
And most importantly, it helped me get Findlay out of my system. It helped exorcise those Findlay demons from my soul. I’m over Findlay. SO OVER FINDLAY. So I need a new obsession, a new destination for next year’s pointless road trip.
Fall 2010… Who’s up for Osaka?!
You can’t have one without the other
Main Street, Findlay, Ohio.